Conventionally, in a process of manufacturing a semiconductor component, a flat display, or the like, a liquid processing apparatus has been used to process a substrate such as a semiconductor wafer or a liquid crystal substrate with a processing solution such as a cleaning solution or an etching solution and then to rinse the substrate with a rinse solution.
The liquid processing apparatus includes a substrate processing chamber installed within a housing, and in the substrate processing chamber, there are provided a substrate holding unit for holding and rotating a substrate horizontally, a processing solution supply unit for supplying a processing solution to the substrate so as to perform a liquid process of the substrate, and a rinse solution supply unit for supplying a rinse solution to the substrate so as to perform a rinse process of the substrate.
In such a liquid processing apparatus, liquid process of the substrate is performed by supplying the processing solution from the processing solution supply unit toward a surface (a main surface on which a circuit is to be formed) of the substrate horizontally rotated and held by the substrate holding unit, and rinsing of the substrate is subsequently performed by supplying the rinse solution from the rinse solution supply unit toward the surface of the substrate horizontally rotated and held by the substrate holding unit.
By way of example, as described in Patent Document 1, in this liquid processing apparatus, a liquid process for removing a resist from a surface of a substrate is performed by using SPM (Sulfuric acid/hydrogen Peroxide Mixture) having a temperature equal to or higher than about 100° C. as a processing solution. The SPM is prepared by mixing sulfuric acid and hydrogen peroxide and allowing them to make a chemical reaction generating reaction heat. After the completion of the liquid process, a rinse process is performed by using pure water of a room temperature as a rinse solution.    Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2006-278509
In the conventional liquid processing apparatus, however, since the rinse process is performed by using the rinse solution of which a temperature is lower than a temperature of the processing solution immediately after the liquid process using the high-temperature processing solution is finished, the substrate may be thermally deformed and bent due to a great difference in substrate temperatures between the liquid process and the rinse process. Accordingly, the substrate may not be firmly held by the substrate holding unit. Besides, the processing solution may be dispersed from the surface of the substrate to the vicinity thereof, resulting in contamination or damage of the inside of the substrate processing chamber.
Moreover, in the aforementioned liquid processing apparatus, immediately after the rinse solution is begun, the rinse solution may be supplied to the substrate of which temperature is still high after the liquid process. Thus, depending on the kind of the processing solution or the rinse solution, the remaining processing solution and the supplied rinse solution may make a rapid chemical reaction under a high-temperature atmosphere, and reaction products may be dispersed in the form of mists, resulting in contamination or damage of the inside of the substrate processing chamber.